It’s up for debate whether Paul’s misdirection was intentional or the result of a punch to the head being thrown so wide that it actually looked like a body shot when launched. The flinch and “bracing for impact” seems to be that split-second reaction where a fighter knows he’s made a fatal mistake, but there’s just not enough time to fix it.Īt least that’s how things look from a nuts and bolts boxing perspective. Replays of the final sequence of the fight seem to show Woodley possibly anticipating a body shot from Paul, lowering his arm to block the shot, but being fooled when the punch actually came upstairs. In this sport, it only takes one mistake. “He threw the overhand and I don’t know if he delayed it– even if he didn’t delay it– I don’t know why I dropped my hand.

“I went back and I looked at it and I’m like why the f*ck did I drop my hand?” Woodley said at the post-fight press conference. Woodley, meanwhile, acknowledges where he went wrong. “He was catching, catching, catching came around and ‘good morning’! It’s got to be the greatest moment of my life, look at what I just did.” “I knew what I was doing, I was setting up the shot the whole fight and he didn’t see it coming,” the 24-year-old Paul said in the post-fight press conference.

Jake Paul, however, claims that the fight-ending right hand was all part of his game plan. They point out that, up until that last punch and all throughout their first fight, which Woodley lost via split decision in August, he had kept a high-guard defense and was not at all susceptible to Paul’s fairly telegraphed big right hand. The argument among those calling the fight fixed is that, based on replays, it looks that Woodley saw the right hand coming and intentionally let down his guard to let it land. “ Sees the punch coming, drops his hand and braces for the impact. “Watch him pick up his hand to defend himself,” one social media video said, with the words superimposed over the knockout sequence in slow motion. That’s what makes these fights bigger.Shortly thereafter, the calls of “Rigged…Fixed…Fake” started. “The media and the fans or haters are definitely holding me to a very high standard because I have a loud mouth,” he said. No matter what he decides to do, he expects the same circus, if not a bigger one, to accompany him. Paul said he was unsure of his next move, saying his constant activity and training deprived him of dentist appointments and vacations.

“We just see this as an interesting evolution of the sport and something that can live side-by-side with the core business,” Espinoza said. For critics, he pointed to other bouts surrounding the main event, such as the women’s featherweight champion Amanda Serrano’s unanimous decision against Yamileth Mercado, as proof that high-level fights can coexist with fan favorite matchups. Stephen Espinoza, the president of Showtime Sports, said in an interview that the network had embraced the new genre of boxing and made no apologies for it. After winning a fight against a foe that analysts considered a legitimate threat, Paul said he would continue to lead the way in shattering the perceived norms of combat sports, and do so proudly. But Paul is not normal, and he does not want to be traditional. The gimmicks, boxing trunk billboards and bets may not be considered normal for a traditional boxing competition. In a postfight news conference, Woodley said he would most likely place it on his thigh. Woodley demanded a rematch, and Paul said he would consider it only if Woodley got a tattoo that said, “I love Jake Paul,” fulfilling a wager the two agreed upon in July. In the end, when two of the three judges scored the bout in Paul’s favor, giving him a split-decision victory, the two men continued the chirping that defined the prefight hype.

It was his name, after all, that got him here. The orange mitts were coordinated with his orange trunks, which were equipped with an electronic screen that projected his name near his waist. In the fifth round of their boxing match on Sunday, after Jake Paul nearly landed a clean blow to Tyron Woodley’s face, Paul sneered at his opponent and then playfully pretended to lick his gloves.

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